"It's a good step for our subsidiary, Vilnius Locomotive Repair Depot, as well amid growing competition and the expansion of its spectrum of services in Europe as we will be seeking more orders to service locomotives in Poland and Ukraine," Bartuska told a press conference on Wednesday.
Egidijus Lazutka, CEO at LG Cargo, said Siemens locomotives are very important for the company as they are used to transport almost half of the total cargo transported by the company.
"We are competing with railway companies from other countries, including Latvia and Poland. Since cargo comes from all places in the world and for them to go via Lithuania, we must be cheaper, faster, more effective than others," Lazauskas said.
Albertas Bajorinas, head of Vilnius Locomotive Repair Depot, noted that the company has never faced such a scope of work involving Western locomotives. "It's a huge challenge. We have repaired locomotives until now but we have not dealt with such a scope of work involving western Siemens locomotives," he said.
Bartuska noted that the repairs of 44 locomotives by LG's subsidiary would allow saving around 1 million euros and would cost around 35 million euros, with the repairs scheduled to be finished by 2021.
